The PASET Regional Scholarship and Innovation Fund (RSIF) is an Africa-fled fund that aims to help create a critical mass of highly skilled scientists, professionals and innovators in the Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (ASET) fields. It is an initiative of PASET. The coordination of PASET-RSIF is done by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) on behalf of the African governments and other donors.

Scholarships are for 3-4 years in PASET RSIF priority thematic areas: ICTs including big data and artificial intelligence; food security and agribusiness; minerals, mining and materials engineering; energy includes renewables; and climate change. The goal is to provide up to 10,000 high-quality PhD training scholarships to African students in the next 10 years. After this year’s selection, by the PASET Regional Coordination Unit, a number of students will join the NM-AIST for their doctoral studies in Materials Science and Engineering (MaSE). Process of selection and scholarships allocation are underway.

PASET-RSIF offers a unique and historic opportunity for African countries to train new doctoral students in high quality PhD programmes in applied sciences, engineering and technology at an affordable cost in competitively selected African universities partnered with international universities. Beyond doctoral training, RSIF systematically nurtures research capacity by fostering partnerships between universities, domestic and international firms to find solutions to local challenges.